AUBURN HILLS — Yippee! Another close loss! Score one for suspense and drama! Throw away those lottery tickets. Take the Nets and the points and find fortune and happiness.

That’s about the only way to keep sane around the Nets, who went up

against a tired, struggling Detroit team that had played the night before. Kerry Kittles was scratched again for the Nets. Bruised feelings were evident again. So look at the positives. If you look only at the negatives, someone will be talking you down from a ledge.

Consider the 109-107 defeat to the Pistons here at the Palace last night. Now, which is the team without a center? With Bison Dele on the retired list, the Pistons scored 70 — honest, seventy as in SEVEN-OH — points in the paint. They eked out the Nets in that category. New Jersey had 20. As in not quite 70.

“Whenever you lose, it’s frustrating. No matter how, it’s the same,” said Stephon Marbury, who poured in 35 points and passed for seven assists and was in on the game’s final sequence when the Nets had a chance to force overtime. “It can’t get no worse.”

Stick around.

The Nets, who announced beforehand that Kittles likely will miss up to two weeks following his seven minute debut Monday when he felt “instability” in his knee, got a Marbury game from Marbury and a Keith Van Horn game from Keith Van Horn (30 points, nine rebounds). Unfortunately for the Nets (1-7), the Pistons (3-6) got a Grant Hill game from Grant Hill (10-of-19 shooting, 32 points, six boards, five assists).

As usual, the Nets had positives. Especially early. With Van Horn playing his most aggressive ball of the season, the Nets were up 12. But then the defense failed them. And eventually, the offense for a spell.

“We put ourselves in position to win this game. We had a lapse in the third quarter where we took a lot of long shots and that led to bad transition defense. That took the gas out of us,” Van Horn said. “Offensively, in the third quarter, we lost our minds.”

And they still had a shot to win. “We did a lot of good things,” observed Don Casey. “We made the big plays at the end. Except the last one.”

And that one was sort of important. After Jerry Stackhouse missed a wide-open 10-footer that would have sealed it for the Pistons, Jamie Feick grabbed one of his 11 rebounds and the Nets called time at :07.6, down the two points. Out of the huddle, Marbury, who got 10 of his points in the fourth quarter and who had stripped Christian Laettner (20 points, 10 boards) for a breakaway score to make it 109-107, drove right. But Laettner got revenge and intervened with hands up.

“From our end, it looked like he was jolted back,” Casey said.

“I missed. There was a lot of contact. But you know you’re not going to get that call there,” said Marbury,

Feick tapped the ball. He missed. “I should have grabbed it,” he said.

One last chance. The ball came to Elliot Perry who turned — right into Hill. Perry, playing backup point over Sherman Douglas, who sat the entire game (“CD, coach’s decision,” Douglas said) never got the shot off.

“It felt like his hand came down and I got fouled. But if they didn’t call the first one, they’re not calling the second,” said Perry.